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A way to add links to the OUYA Menu Overlay

As we all know I love to tinker, but one thing that I would love to see is a way to access (by adding or deleting) items in the OUYA menu overlay, the one you get with the Double (U) press.

This would allow for a new set of options such as chat overlays and addon applications such as item/game/app guides that could be loaded on top of a running application and then return the user to the game in progress. All this would be achieved by having some sort of "hook" that allows a text item to be added to the menu, above the "turn off controller" item. In the most well known case one could add chat, perhaps even with a counter to show new message number, that would let you load another overlay to view a chat application designed to work with it. I would imagine the best way to deal with this would be with broadcasts.

As for the removal option, some of us would like to keep users out of the OUYA menu and as such the ability to remove the OUYA Home is very useful. Some users would also like ability to NOT have the Eject USB or Sleep buttons there, again this would allow that.

There would be nothing permanent in this as it would be controlled by an application that would broadcast the appropriate message at boot/install and then the OUYA system only needs to catch this and adjust the menu accordingly. Any changes could be reset either in app OR by uninstalling the app and then rebooting; yes I am recommending the OUYA reset the settings on startup and the app send the broadcasts on boot, this way it is not a permanent change and does not result in a reset of the device.

While one could write their own overlay, it does not have access to things like purchase so this would be the next best thing, unless OUYA wants to open up an API to give access to that of course. ;D

Please make sure you vote in the poll that way OUYA can see if there is a demand for this , or not

This could be really awesome. I think that the ouya systems menu is one of the worst parts of the UI currently. It's always laggy and not very useful. I would really love some volume options in here. Maybe a link to a music player that allows me to listen to music while playing games and adjust the volume between the two, that would be sweet. As well as a link to a Favorites menu, Dev Page, and other options for quickly switching games.

This could be really awesome. I think that the ouya systems menu is one of the worst parts of the UI currently. It's always laggy and not very useful. I would really love some volume options in here. Maybe a link to a music player that allows me to listen to music while playing games and adjust the volume between the two, that would be sweet. As well as a link to a Favorites menu, Dev Page, and other options for quickly switching games.

Yea I have been itching to code a number of things that would have 0 use with out a way to call them up in app/game. Music/chat/email/helper apps (think cheat guides as an overlay)

I enabled the multitask but i still have the problem! The ouya overlay KILLs the sideloaded apps (the spotify it seens to work for no reason :s )

Spotify likely employs a foreground service which keeps running after you exit the app.

Originally Posted by Kaimega

There is an option to turn off multitasking in the advanced settings. But it is turned off and advised against for good reason

Indeed, some games could have a slowdown if you're doing something intensive in the background, BUT that should be left up to the user, not OUYA. I can understand having the option off by default though. I think many games would lend themselves quite nicely to having music playing in the background and let us not forget email alerts and chats only need to poll every so often and are otherwise asleep.